eShe TV: What freedom means to Indian women | Independence Day Special

As India celebrates 76 years of Independence, eShe TV puts the spotlight on what freedom means to Indian women.

Are Indian girls free to make informed choices for their lives – about work, marriage, finances, or even something as simple as what to wear? Do Indian women have freedom of movement and equal access to opportunities or even public spaces?

eShe editor Aekta Kapoor speaks to three panelists, all of whom run independent platforms to support women.

Watch the video here.

“Freedom is the right, the liberty and the independence to make my own decisions and my own choices – choices related to my mind, my body and my future,” says Sangeeta Relan, an associate professor at Delhi University who has taught for over 30 years.

“Freedom means that I should be able to step out of my environment and feel safe and secure,” she says, adding that while there has been some progress for women in India, there are still “miles to go”.

“Those miles are largely the result of our mindsets, our values, our beliefs. And women are equally affected by those mindsets,” says Sangeeta, who is the founder of AboutHer, an e-magazine. She also runs a podcast about women trailblazers. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Corporate Governance and Gender Diversity at the Delhi School of Economics.

Dr Manisha Bose, a lecturer at Assumption University in Thailand who has worked at National College Mumbai and Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, says, “Freedom means that when a woman travels in a bus or a train, she is not afraid of being molested or raped. For me, that is freedom and we certainly don’t have it – not just in India but in many other countries.”

Her statements hold much relevance at a time when India is still reeling from the horrific May 2023 incident in Manipur, where women of the Kuki-Zo tribe were paraded naked and gang-raped by a mob of men from the rival Meitei tribe. The male family members of the victims were killed when they tried to save them.

Founder of We Women Network in Bangkok and chapter head of #WomenPower, a global movement, Manisha says, “Choice of career, choice of marriage, reproductive choices – these are all choices a woman must have. And these choices must not be given to her as a favour but as a right.”

Shweta Saxena, a Pune-based eco-entrepreneur, television personality, and the founder of Woman TV, a digital channel for women across the globe, says, “For me, the definition of freedom can’t be complete unless I am able to call myself financially independent. Everything begins from there.”

A branding psychologist, TEDx speaker and digital ad filmmaker, Shweta adds, “For women entrepreneurs, half of their business profits go towards household expenses. Women unintentionally or unwillingly give away the rights to the business profits to the spouse, or to the business partner who is mostly a male family member.”

Even if a woman is not an entrepreneur, her access to family finance is taken away by sharing passwords with family members or husbands, says Shweta. Women’s streedhan (wealth given to a bride by her parents) is taken away by husbands on the pretext of starting a new business, which is also a way to leave women without personal wealth.

“Her savings are not important. She is not asked whether she is happy to give it or not,” says Shweta, who has been involved with women-centric nonprofit work since 2010 in Switzerland, Australia, India and UK. “This needs to change,” she asserts.

This episode is also available as a podcast: